And it’ll be accompanied, we haven’t even the slightest shred of doubt, by a veritable procession of outraged columnists demanding that Alistair Darling must take personal responsibility for the actions of these people.

Our emphasis. It sure is a mystery where this “acrimony” is coming from, eh readers? Perhaps, if we all have to get along together after the referendum, it might possibly be better not to engage in furious, unhinged rants where you call your opponents a bunch of racist bigots. Just a thought, like.

Only our very alertest readers are likely to recall our first brush with Azeem Ibrahim of the “Scotland Institute”, a right-wing think tank which recently came up with a report on an independent Scotland’s debt that was picked up by some of the less discerning newspapers but which we ignored for being too boring.

And we must concede fair play to the eternally attention-seeking Mr Ibrahim, because he’s come storming right back with something altogether livelier.

We’ve quite frequently highlighted the ugly, irresponsible tone of the No campaign’s – and especially Labour’s – comments about “foreigners”in the independence debate. And the reason we do is because that sort of language feeds attitudes like these.

Firstly, Elaine, we’d have to say that “it would be crazy” DOES actually sound like quite a strong view on independence to us. But in all seriousness, leaving all snark and sarcasm aside, how on Earth does a human being living in the UK in 2014, seemingly not inside any sort of secure institution, come to believe something like that?

Ms Coates isn’t some lone madwoman. Other people, also not resident in mental hospitals, say the same thing. And we get that lots of people aren’t into politics. But when it comes to ignorance about your own nation, being unaware that Scotland has oil is somewhere on a par with not knowing that Great Britain is an island. How in the world do you go through decades of adult life without ever picking up on that fact?

It’s not a rhetorical question. Can someone actually explain it to us?